I haven't been posting for very long so feel free to tell a noob to sit the fuck back down and shut up! lol

But yo...I was talking to DJ Sapien and I was telling him how I just left a beats forum (called The Beat INN) that was getting super weak on the flips, samples, and skill...but was, and is, still very dope for discussion of techniques for each week. I think having that element in STBB would put this board over the top in terms of all around quality. I didn't want to post this in Talk or Crates because I was hoping that maybe we could start this thread with every new battle for people to express any questions, advice, or praise about particular submissions. Constrobuz has a really long thread about sidechain compression that kind of just happened out of nowhere on his 285 soundcloud entry, and there were folks who said they wished there was something of the sort with every week.

For instance, someone would start the thread near the end of the week just the same way we post the Voting thread. Anybody who had a particular topic in mind or track they liked (keep it focused on the sample for that week) could post there.....hopefully we'd be able to get some real knowledge out of it.

partly all of those, and also i've gotten to a point where i'm happy with the way my shit sounds and i dont actively try new things. which is bad, but im a bit lazy.

This may sound weird but, try to never be happy with your sound, that wavelength of thinking can start to block everything off, when I was in this boat about 2 years ago, I noticed a lot of people were saying Dilla used too reinvent himself all the time, I realised by sense of humour "ha ha he coudn't be happy with his sound" then came the O my God realisation, he was actually never happy with what he had done, and this must of been where he got his insane drive from, and he never got complacent. When people talk about someones sound like Madlib, EL-P(company flow) Black Milk, etc it's very distinct, but when they say about Dillas sound I'm like which one, Compare the Tribe Called Quest to the Pharcyde, some of the stuff he did for common to Champion Sound to Donuts, The other thing that has kept me out of a block was researching what sound and frequencies do to your body, loads of crazy videos on youtube of sacred geomerty being made by sound, ever wondered why some songs make you feel like cringing, or being sick, usually radio tunes, it's the patterns being made within you, the water. Hope I'm not telling you how to suck eggs, but found it really pushed me.

Upvote for this idea. Im always keen to share and learn about diff techniques. Just recently I watched a youtube tutorial on ableton about Freeze and Flatten. Blew my mind. Bout to explore it for next week.

These battles have always encouraged me to push the bounds of creativity but also strive for a certain standard of excellence. Some times I'll just make a wack beat cuz Im lazy that week tho haha. But yeah, upvote for this idea. Always keen to share and be learnt.

Yes Sev dam good idea, find out how DJ Sapien makes a beat on a plane!!
sometimes I really want feedback, and you will get, dope bass, nice drop, it's cool, but sometimes I post my battle beat go to work come back and listen and think O shit! that really is crap, for example the remix of S.F.T's brothers tune I was quite happy with, really listen too it and it's crap, but it got 80 odd plays, sometimes you know you've dropped a bomb and it gets slept on, doesn't even get a mention, I've noticed this with a lot of beats, take Ogi feel the beat how the hell has he not won a battle yet. Do we see no comments and assume something is not very good and skip it, I know I have been guilty!! this makes me wanna get better and push others as well.

This may sound weird but, try to never be happy with your sound, that wavelength of thinking can start to block everything off, when I was in this boat about 2 years ago, I noticed a lot of people were saying Dilla used too reinvent himself all the time, I realised by sense of humour "ha ha he coudn't be happy with his sound" then came the O my God realisation, he was actually never happy with what he had done, and this must of been where he got his insane drive from, and he never got complacent. When people talk about someones sound like Madlib, EL-P(company flow) Black Milk, etc it's very distinct, but when they say about Dillas sound I'm like which one, Compare the Tribe Called Quest to the Pharcyde, some of the stuff he did for common to Champion Sound to Donuts, The other thing that has kept me out of a block was researching what sound and frequencies do to your body, loads of crazy videos on youtube of sacred geomerty being made by sound, ever wondered why some songs make you feel like cringing, or being sick, usually radio tunes, it's the patterns being made within you, the water. Hope I'm not telling you how to suck eggs, but found it really pushed me.

Cooo sign to that Obi,im trying to use that same spirit dilla had,Being a perfectionist and Too much knowledge aint enuff

Hey dudes heres a video of a breakdown of my beat. Some people had been asking:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QImg-L7VAI

ooooohhhhhhh!!!! thank you g! i was definitely one of the people who was headscratching after I listened to your joint. awesome man. im so glad cats are feelin this idea, this is what a beat forum should be about.

Great idea, I'm all for it! Learning so much from these battles already from listening to all of your flips and trying to understand the different approaches... Discussing it here could only take it to a deeper level I think.

@rasdude I sometimes use Reason for flipping - usually when I do, I'll just edit in an audio editor and throw the chops into an NNXT. In that case, doesn't make too much difference which sampler or DAW you use imho

ooooohhhhhhh!!!! thank you g! i was definitely one of the people who was headscratching after I listened to your joint. awesome man. im so glad cats are feelin this idea, this is what a beat forum should be about.

the frequency splitter is lookin like a very fun toy

Yeah dude Frequency Splitter is what I've been using lately to experiment with placing my different sounds on the frequency spectrum? Is that what its called? J0ndis is the one who has really good sounding beats. He prob is the person to talk to in terms of sonics and frequencies.

Yeah, I do. Reason and Recycle. I feel like i'm in the minority but DAWs don't define your sound. Why do you ask?

just wondering what reason/recycle users prefer in regards to flipping...such as what instruments within the daw you use for flipping/mixing/mastering your sound? im always learning new things in that program and personally i dislike how the mix in my tracks turn out as far as getting everything to sound good together

just wondering what reason/recycle users prefer in regards to flipping...such as what instruments within the daw you use for flipping/mixing/mastering your sound? im always learning new things in that program and personally i dislike how the mix in my tracks turn out as far as getting everything to sound good together

Yeah, I know what you mean. I use Reason, too. So far my beats are... let's say they're okay... nothing more, nothing less. Not always, but sometimes I have the feeling that this is because of my lack of knowledge when it comes to mastering. This is a great idea, Sev. I think everyone would profit from this.Oh yeah, Ras. I use ReCycle to slice the samples. Then I use either the Dr. Octo Rex or the NN-XT, it depends on what I want to do. What's good about the NN-XT is that I can play one slice in different pitches, this gives me more space to be creative with the samples.

just wondering what reason/recycle users prefer in regards to flipping...such as what instruments within the daw you use for flipping/mixing/mastering your sound? im always learning new things in that program and personally i dislike how the mix in my tracks turn out as far as getting everything to sound good together

It's not got a very good audio engine rewire it and you will see, it will instantly sound better. a few people I know that engineer roll their eyes when that programs mentioned.

It's not got a very good audio engine rewire it and you will see, it will instantly sound better. a few people I know that engineer roll their eyes when that programs mentioned.

ReWiring Reason sounds exactly the same as standalone to me... The added benefit of ReWiring is being able to combine it and use the awesome plugins in say, Logic or Ableton. And those often do sound better than the Reason ones. I don't know where this myth comes from that it's not a very good audio engine, in fact it's one of the best and most cpu-efficient out there. It all depends on what you throw in (or on) there really.At the end of the day it's just a tool... It's more limited in some ways, such as the integrated fx, but it excels at other stuff like the modular routing, which can be so powerful and creative.

The problem with the NNXT is that you can't set the start and end point of the sample as precisely on-the-fly. So as far as samplers go, I usually use Kontakt, the EXS24 in Logic, or simply audio clips.But now that I've seen SFT's vid, I might just give Ableton a go! :-) I don't know of any sampler that looks so flexible and quick at the same time... that trick of instantly creating a new sampler from the sampler itself is sick, with EXS or Kontakt you just can't do it that easily.

Btw: Did you know FlyLo produced all of his albums up until Pattern/Grid world with Reason 3.5 ? :-)

I have ableton also though, but I have yet to do a session with it. Intimidating, it's like learning a completely new language it's so revolutionary. There's cats making BANK doing ableton tutorials, lotta new djs and producers who never did a beat or blend in their life going for the top shelf from the start, yet no idea how any of it works! Lol but they have the money to pay. Lol 99% of real djs and producers don't have money ha

I have ableton also though, but I have yet to do a session with it. Intimidating, it's like learning a completely new language it's so revolutionary. There's cats making BANK doing ableton tutorials, lotta new djs and producers who never did a beat or blend in their life going for the top shelf from the start, yet no idea how any of it works! Lol but they have the money to pay. Lol 99% of real djs and producers don't have money ha

Oh no this is where I have to come clean, using No.5 had 6, and sold it to get maschine, you had to pay to get the 6.5 upgrade to fix the midi tracking that they ruined, also cos I had the artist version I could not group export had to do one track at a time, I also got in a massive row with them, customer services was arrogant as hell, so I bluntly told them I was going to use the cracked version just to fuck them off. Know what your saying about learning a new language, I used samplitude for my first 3 battle beats, but shit is full on, lets say I have next to no money and have access to daws, not really the moral way but if shit's good i'll work save or sell and pay. I'll probably stick with 5 as the audio engines honest.

ReWiring Reason sounds exactly the same as standalone to me... The added benefit of ReWiring is being able to combine it and use the awesome plugins in say, Logic or Ableton. And those often do sound better than the Reason ones. I don't know where this myth comes from that it's not a very good audio engine, in fact it's one of the best and most cpu-efficient out there. It all depends on what you throw in (or on) there really.At the end of the day it's just a tool... It's more limited in some ways, such as the integrated fx, but it excels at other stuff like the modular routing, which can be so powerful and creative.

The problem with the NNXT is that you can't set the start and end point of the sample as precisely on-the-fly. So as far as samplers go, I usually use Kontakt, the EXS24 in Logic, or simply audio clips.But now that I've seen SFT's vid, I might just give Ableton a go! :-) I don't know of any sampler that looks so flexible and quick at the same time... that trick of instantly creating a new sampler from the sampler itself is sick, with EXS or Kontakt you just can't do it that easily.

Btw: Did you know FlyLo produced all of his albums up until Pattern/Grid world with Reason 3.5 ? :-)

Rewired straight into cubase and there was more clarity and definition in the treble and mids, no vst's, same for me with maschine, I finish everything off in cubase as it does just sound better, I also remember versions of fruity loops where you could tell it was fruity loops now look at the program such a difference, funny thing is we both gone oh my GOD!! at ableton ha ha!

Rewired straight into cubase and there was more clarity and definition in the treble and mids, no vst's, same for me with maschine, I finish everything off in cubase as it does just sound better, I also remember versions of fruity loops where you could tell it was fruity loops now look at the program such a difference, funny thing is we both gone oh my GOD!! at ableton ha ha!

Interesting! Dunno, it could be the summing algorithm, floating point vs. fixed, that kinda thing... do you just rewire one or or multiple tracks? I do hear subtle differences from one DAW to another, the summing in ProTools sounds different to me than in Logic. Never tried Cubase, though I've worked with Nuendo before and that sounds really transparent to me. Anyway... we nerding out You could make a sick beat with whatever... but Ableton seems pretty sick indeed!